Photo courtesy of Mistletoe & Magic

Mistletoe & Magic is always a magical evening of wining, dining, bidding and buying!

Mistletoe & Magic, the Paoli Hospital Auxiliary’s premiere fundraising event, will be held on November 19, 2011 at the prestigious Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square.

Mistletoe & Magic is always a magical evening of wining, dining, bidding and buying. The evening will begin at 6:00 PM and include a silent auction and cocktails followed by a buffet dinner and dancing. Music will be provided by the John Breslin Trio.

Patricia B. Holloway will be honored as the 2011 Mistletoe & Magic honorary chairperson. Ms. Holloway is vice-chair of the Paoli Hospital Foundation Board of Trustees.

Proceeds from Mistletoe & Magic will continue to help fulfill the auxiliary’s multi-year million dollar pledge and be directed toward expanding the Obstetrics and Neonatal Intensive Care units.

For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit www.mistletoeandmagic.org.

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Photos of White Dog and Kaya’s courtesy of Courtney Apple Photography
Photo of Susanna Foo’s courtesy of Belle Vie Photography

Wayne’s popular White Dog is offering a three-course Mother’s Day brunch for $40.

It’s one of the most popular Sundays of the year to dine out: Mother’s Day! Here at AroundMainLine.com we’ve compiled a comprehensive dining guide of top choices around the Main Line and western suburbs. To my mom and all the mothers and great women in our lives, Happy Mother’s Day!

Sarah Lockard
AroundMainLine.com

White Dog Wayne
www.whitedog.com/wayne.html
200 West Lancaster Avenue
Wayne, PA
Call for reservations: 610-225-3700
White Dog will accept walk-ins but highly recommends reservations.
Mother’s Day Brunch Hours: 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
$40 for 3 course tasting menu
$15 for kids, 2 course menu
Their regular dinner menu will be served from 4-8p.m.

Lotus farm to table
lotusfarmtotable.com
112 West State Street
Media, PA
Call for reservations: 610-565-5554
Mother’s Day Brunch hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
3 courses for $30, bloody mary mixer bar, fresh squeezed orange juice / BYOC (Champagne) for mimosas
Menu selections include: oysters, smoked turkey rillet with red beet jam, house cured gravlax (cured salmon) with watercress and deviled egg, johnnycakes with blueberry syrup, iron skillet baked eggs, huervos rancheros, and more. Lotus can accommodate children with smaller portions. Read the full story

Photos by Courtney Apple Photography

Main Line Restaurant Week is Philadelphia’s largest suburban dining event!

It was most certainly a week of culinary delights to remember! 38 restaurants participated in the inaugural Main Line Restaurant Week, organized by AroundMainLine.com. This incredible celebration of the region’s finest chefs proved to be the most successful restaurant event to date in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Main Line Restaurant Week, which offered fixed price dinner menus for the entire week of September 27th through October 3rd, brought tens of thousands of locals out to support the western suburbs’ tastiest restaurants. “I’m so proud to have worked closely with so many of the area’s best restaurants. There has never been a dining event of this magnitude in the suburbs and I felt our area was long overdue. Many restaurants are reporting they had record weeks or were sold out several of the nights, so I know we have a good thing going here. I am thrilled everything turned out so well!” enthused Main Line Restaurant Week founder Sarah Lockard. Read the full story

Photos courtesy of Courtney Apple Photography

Saffron Indian Kitchen, a popular BYOB with locations in both Bala Cynywd and Ambler, has received a tremendous response for reservations for Main Line Restaurant Week starting September 27th.

It is the Philadelphia suburb’s largest dining event ever—Main Line Restaurant Week! Created and organized by AroundMainLine.com, a week of culinary delights awaits thousands of foodies across the western suburbs starting tomorrow night, September 27th and running through October 3rd, 2010.

I have been a huge fan of the Main Line and western suburb dining scene having grown up here. And, we have some of the best chefs in the region and the most successful restaurants right in our own backyard. To me, it was due time to bring Main Line Restaurant Week to life this fall. When I announced the launch in early May, the immediate and enthusiastic response from our 2,200 AroundMainLine.com Facebook fans proved that we were on our way to a very successful event.

Here’s how it works. Our restaurants offer a prix fixe, three course dinner menu for one of the four tiers: dinner for $15, $20, $30 or $40. In addition, starting Monday night September 27th, we will kick off the first of eight special events that are a part of Main Line Restaurant Week with a ‘Monday Night Meetup’ at The Desmond in Malvern! Read the full story

By AML Publisher
Photos courtesy of Kate’s Lens Photography

The Westtown School Garden Tour
Historic Hunter's Hill

Chester County’s Westtown School is launching its inaugural Garden Tour, featuring an evening reception and preview garden Party on Saturday, May 22nd. In addition, a self-guided tour of seven beautiful private gardens will follow on Sunday, May 23rd. Carol Trask, Westtown’s Special Events & Volunteer Manager, has the task of creating events that appeal to the Westtown community as well as the general public. “There is a beautiful variety of gardens on the tour, including a native meadow that was recently reestablished. We are really excited to offer this to the public as a wonderful weekend experience-and support our efforts at Westtown,” said Trask.

The evening reception on May 22nd will be held from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at a historic 18th century farm and home, Hunter’s Hill. Westtown alum Charles Brock II offered his property as the backdrop to kickoff the tour-a 162-acre farm in Newtown Square that was part of an original grant by William Penn. “It’s only been owned by three families since the land was cleared in the early eighteenth century, which is pretty remarkable,” enthused Trask. On the property is the beautiful main stone house-one portion which was built in 1726. In 1758, the home was expanded and four years ago the Brock’s added on. Only on Saturday evening, with the preview party, will the public be able to participate in a guided tour of the Brock home with its fine art and antiques-while being entertained with historical information about the home and the area.
Read the full story

By Garrison Weaver
AML Guest Co-Ed Columnist
Photos courtesy of Garrison Weaver

Hitting the Books Early! Weaver, who was a star student at Devon Prep, studies Econ in his dorm room at Marsh Hall during his first week of classes.

It’s funny to think that only one year ago I was getting ready to start my senior year of high school. The only things I had to worry about were golf practice every day and trying to stay interested in my summer reading that was only about half done. I had almost no idea that I would be sitting in a dorm room in Richmond typing away about life. Now that it is here, the surreal feeling sets in. Last year I didn’t know where I was going to apply. It was almost a helpless feeling knowing that I would be judged by a group of institutions that had no idea who I was and convincing them that I would be a positive contribution to their group. Now that I am here, it is the greatest feeling in the world. All of my hard work over four years has landed me in Marsh Hall, Room 0132 as a student pursuing a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Economics.

I left my summer cottage in Mt. Gretna, a small town near Hershey, at around 9AM on August 16th to make the journey to Virginia, my home for the next four academic years. I drove a suburban filled to the brim with my clothes, books, personal items, basically my life packed into an 18 foot gas guzzler. With my mom in the passenger seat I wound down the Turnpike to US-15 and turned south to get to I-95 south, the straightaway that leads right into Richmond. We seldom stopped in order to get to the University by 2PM, my appointed check-in time, but did manage to get a “last-supper” at a Wawa somewhere in Virginia (I definitely recommend the pepperoni and provolone bagel melt). I think I should mention that I was involved in a pre-orientation program called the Outdoor Challenge. It was an excuse to move in early and avoid the sea of parents and tears that usually accompany move-ins, and get my foot in the door to both campus and a group of 15 other guys that would be some of my closest friends here.
Read the full story

By Garrison Weaver
AML Guest Co-Ed Columnist
Photos Courtesy of Bernadette Uzcategui

Weaver plans on majoring in economics with a minor in finance.

I met Garrison Weaver a month ago on Twitter. Weaver started following AroundMainLine.com and his profile photo caught my attention—which is saying a lot since we have close to 1,000 local followers with our growing Twitter group. Always in my publisher state of mind, I sent Garrison a personal message thanking him for following AML and asking about his obvious interest in photography-as his profile pictured showcased him with a camera. As it turned out, Garrison is not only a budding photo journalist but an established writer. And, as luck would have it, he was gearing up for his freshman year at one of America’s most prestigious universities (which has been a college of choice for thousands of Main Liners for decades), the great University of Richmond.

Weaver, a graduate of Devon Prep, was the chief editor and photographer for the Prep’s 2009 Yearbook—having processed thousands of photos from the high school’s sporting events and organized the content, layout and production almost singlehandedly himself. One brief phone chat and a subsequent cup of Joe with the 18-year-old Newtown Square native and I knew there was an awesome opportunity to follow the exciting journey and experience of his upcoming freshman year as a Richmond Spider.

Garrison is most excited about his role as a sports photographer for the university newspaper. He has the exciting task of capturing Spiders athletics, most importantly the defending 1-AA Defending National Champs, The Richmond Spiders Football Team.

Weaver plans on majoring in economics with a minor in finance. And, as a paid sports photographer for the university newspaper The Collegian, he will be shooting dozens of games within the Spiders’ athletic department. Most notably on his agenda this fall: November 7th when the Villanova Wildcats come to down for quite a pigskin showdown against the defending I-AA National Champs. Look for Garrison’s reports from campus right here on AML regularly as he ‘Weav-ers a Web’ and takes us along with him for one amazing freshman foray as a Richmond Spider.

Garrison, we are very proud to be your virtual ‘home away from home’ and we will all be rooting for you from our desktops! Go get ‘em…Spider!

Sarah Lockard
AroundMainLine.com Publisher

Early August 2009

So I can safely say that I never thought I would be doing something like this, and by this I mean writing down my experiences leading up to my freshman year in college as well as the events that take place during that time. I was asked by Sarah Lockard of AroundMainLine.com, to contribute to the site as a blogger about my first year the University of Richmond. I have always been a writer of sorts, writing editorial pieces for my high school newspaper and as the editor of the yearbook, but never that was as colloquial or frequent as I might have imagined. In short, I’m what some would call a newbie blogger, but here I go.

To be honest I haven’t really thought about going off to school until this weekend. Yesterday I went to a friend’s house for a party; a bit of a mini send-off for the Devon Prep Class of 2009. I saw people that I haven’t seen since June, but that was normal during high school because I have my group of friends and see who I want to see in the summer. But as I left I found myself saying, “If I don’t see you guys before school starts, good luck at college.” It doesn’t feel any different any other school year; I’m just going away to a new place with new people. Not that I don’t think about missing my family and friends, and of course my wonderful girlfriend (who is going to be a senior at Villa Maria), but I can’t predict the feelings I will have until I actually feel them.

I left last night to go to Avalon for the week, while Lauren (afore mentioned girlfriend) is on her Kairos retreat. I got down to the house that my family rented and elected to sleep in a bedroom on the second floor with two twin beds, the other bed being a resting place for all the junk I thought I might need at the beach. My mom came to me this morning and suggested I take the room opposite the master bedroom with a king size bed, for the sole reason that “[I'll] be sleeping on twins all school year” and I should “enjoy a large bed while [I] can.” Little things like that put the situation in perspective and makes me realize that in two weeks exactly I will move into Marsh Hall and live there until this coming May.

Garrison flanked by his proud parents, John and Caroline Weaver of Newtown Square, and family pet Harley (Davidson).

I’m writing this ‘virgin post’ in the living room of my shore house, watching the Phillies get romped by the Giants (ok fine it’s the top of the 8th and they have not been hitting well with runners in scoring position, but maybe there is something brewing). I envy the people in San Fran because it is 80 and sunny but in Avalon it has been a constant ride of thunderstorms and mixed clouds all day with little end in sight. The times I’ve been in Jersey this summer have all been different intolerable extremes, all of which combining to make coming down here a hit or miss. Early June was cold and rainy for a week and a couple weeks ago it was ridiculous hellish heat. Hopefully, I will have a normal beach day before this final week of freedom is over…before I have to nose-to-the-grindstone my way through my first semester at UR.

I elected to take economics, intensive French, calculus, and a CORE English class my first semester at school. I took French for three years in high school but not every day of college, not to mention twice on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It definitely seems that all the time that slid by during high school French will quickly catch up with me during first semester. Other than that, Econ seems to be fun. It’s something I am interested in, but everyone I have asked has said that it is basically supply and demand on steroids. So the comparison I make, as a baseball player, is going from facing mediocre high school pitching to facing Randy Johnson during his Diamondback days.

Well, it’s time for me to take a walk down to Circle Pizza to wolf down some green pepper and onion slices in an effort to nourish myself after a day of driving to find something fun to do in the rain. More to come.

Garrison

Stay tuned for Garrison’s first report from The Richmond Campus, as he gets acquainted with his new living quarters, his roommate, class schedule and campus life. And, follow him along here on AML regularly this fall as he documents his experiences during an exciting and challenging freshman year at one of America’s most prestigious universities, The University of Richmond. Spider Bites is just getting started!